No. 930 – Lost My Mind

Performer: Matthew Sweet

Songwriter: Matthew Sweet

Original Release: 100% Fun

Year: 1995

Definitive Version: None

Shortly after 100% Fun came out, I was going to have Debbie over to my place in German Village, when I noticed something odd in the kitchen. I had a yellow dishwashing sponge that was pulled out from the sink on the counter. It appeared that a few small pieces had been pulled out of it and strewn about on the counter. What the hell?

It didn’t take me long to figure it out based on the small gaps in the sponge: It was a mouse that probably thought it had hit the cheese motherlode. Oh great. The last thing I was going to do was tell Debbie I had mice. I hid the offending sponge and never said a word.

The next morning after she left, I went to work. It had to be in the basement, but where? The basement was just glorified storage, and I noticed that it had small holes at the base where the old cement had fractured somewhat. I plugged the holes, because if the mouse got into the walls or foundation, I’d never find it. My apartment had a storm cellar door that led out to my small back patio that I never used. I opened that up.

So my brilliant and humane strategem was to roust the offending mouse and somehow chase it up the steps and out the cellar door. I grabbed a broom and began whumping it on stuff. Nothing. I went to the single-bed mattresses I had stacked up against the wall and gave them a shake. A rustling told the tale, so I yanked them away and there it was—your basic small, grey house mouse. It made a bead for the hole that I had just plugged with a brick. Foiled!

It then sprinted to the corner below the stairs. OK, now I have to somehow convince it that the proper course of action was to come back out into the middle of the room a bit and run up the stairs outside. I backed off a bit to give him room and swung the broom to one side of the stairs. It bolted to the other side and would have made it back to the pile of mattresses and boxes, but I swung around and gave it a sweet backhand brush that put it at the base of the stairs. Eat your heart out, Pete Sampras. The mouse jumped up the first step, then the next. I did nothing but drew close enough to convince it that reversing direction wasn't an option. Sure enough, the mouse made it all the way up the stairs and out into the sunny day. Triumphant, I pulled the cellar door shut with a bang.

I shook a few more boxes, but I heard nothing more. It was a solitary mouse, so now that I was satisfied that I had taken care of my vermin situation, I told Debbie about it. She said it didn’t bother her, but I can’t remember that she ever spent another evening at my place after that.